December 20, 2010

Pope shares wise words about clergy sex abuse

The Rev. Bob Barron, priest and theology professor, University of St. Mary of the Lake in Mundelein

It is the custom of the Pope to offer Christmas greetings to his official family, the bishops and Cardinals who direct the various departments of the Roman Curia. But his words at this occasion are typically much more than mere pleasantries. They constitute, usually, a kind of review of the previous year from the perspective of the Bishop of Rome. The Christmas statement that Benedict XVI made just this morning to his official entourage was of particular gravity, precisely because it represents one of his most thorough and insightful assessments of the clerical sex abuse scandal.

The Pope drew attention to an arresting vision experienced by the 12th century German mystic, Hildegard of Bingen. Hildegard saw an incomparably beautiful woman, stretching from earth to heaven, and clothed in luminous vestments. But the woman’s radiant face was covered in dust, her vesture was ripped on one side, and her shoes were blackened.

Then the mystic heard a voice from heaven announcing that this was an image of the church, beautiful but compromised. The Pope appropriated this image and interpreted it in light of our present stuggles, commenting, “the face of the Church is stained with dust, and this is how we have seen it. Her garment is torn—by the sins of priests. The way she (Hildegard) saw and expressed it is the way we have experienced it this year.”

Pretty blunt language that. The Pope specified that the Church must pose some serious questions about its own life if it is to understand the conditions that made the sex abuse crisis possible. Strikingly, he observed, “We must ask ourselves what was wrong in our proclamation, in our whole way of living the Christian life, to allow such a thing to happen.”

These are not the words of someone who is exculpating the church or trying to brush the problem under the carpet. The Pope is implying here that there was something seriously awry in regard to the church’s entire manner of self-presentation, the way in which church representatives taught Christ, and more importantly, showed him forth.

Mind you, this has nothing to do with inadequacies in the teachings themselves (does anyone think that the church has ever been anything but clear in regard to the immorality of sexually abusing children?); but I think the Holy Father is indeed critiquing a lack of focus, a loss of energy and purpose, a certain drift and uncertainty on the part of those charged with presenting the demands of the Christian life in their full integrity. The Pope concluded that the church must be willing to do penance. No excuses here, no attempts at self-justification, no passing of the buck. Just a clear and simple call for penitence and reform.

But then the Pope introduced a wider horizon, a further context for analysis and interpretation. The Church, he reminded us, does not exist in isolation from trends and tendencies in the general society, and therefore, this terrible ecclesiastical problem of clerical sexual abuse should be understood in relation to certain dysfunctions within the environing culture.

The Pope pointed out, for example, that child pornography, a curse throughout the world, is being considered “more and more normal by society” and that “the psychological destruction of children, in which human persons are reduced to articles of merchandise, is a terrifying sign of the times.”

More to it, he related that numerous bishops who come to see him in Rome inform him of the horror of “sexual tourism,” the exploiting of children, often in the undeveloped world, by predators from the wealthier nations.

Though it inevitably exposes him to the charge of not taking the issue of ecclesiastical corruption with requisite seriousness, the Pope was correctly situating the clerical sex abuse crisis in the context of a far more pervasive moral crisis in the society. The sexual abuse of children takes place, to state it bluntly, everywhere in our culture: in families, in schools, in hospitals, in locker rooms and on playgrounds. The difficulty is by no means unique to the Catholic Church or to the celibate priesthood; it is, sadly enough, a human problem.

The deepest problem—and this brings Pope Benedict back to one of his favorite themes—is an ethical relativism that would dictate that no act can ever be described as intrinsically evil, that is to say, wrong no matter what the context or motivation or consequences. The Pope’s own characterization of the attitude is pithy and clear: “anything can be good or also bad, depending upon purposes and circumstances.” It is this faulty philosophy, born of our profound reluctance to have any limits set to our self-determination and freedom, which has produced the moral atmosphere in which the sexual abuse of children became such a pervasive reality.

I believe that this extraordinary statement of the Pope effectively holds off two approaches that are simply non-starters, namely, an ecclesiastical defensiveness that refuses to own up to the deep and wicked dysfunction within the church itself and an anti-Catholicism that refuses to own up to the disturbing presence of this problem throughout our morally confused culture.

If we are truly interested in solving the problem of the sexual abuse of children by the clergy, we should attend to these wise words from the Bishop of Rome.

Posted at 02:49:58 PM

Comments

If the pope really wants to impress anyone, he should turn himself in for arrest and prosecution for his role in the scandal. Would this not be following in Jesus' footsteps, quite literally?

How long are you going to delay in taking the real actions needed to clean up this huge mess of crimes against children within the Catholic church system?

It is pretty simple, just ask the thousands and thousands of victims what to do about this.

--Turn over all documents of sex abuse and cover ups to law enforcement officials to investigate.

--Make public the names of all abusive clergy, fire them, and then turn them over to police.

--Make public all the names of every Bishop who covered up these crimes, which protected and enabled the child predators instead of protecting the innocent children, and then fire them.

--Stop making excuses, stop blaming others, stop blaming society, ( after all catholic priests, nuns, brothers, bishops, cardinals, and popes are not suppose to have sex. "period". That practice and logic has nothing to do with 'how' society is now or has been in past centuries.

Founded in 1989, SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priest (SNAPnetwork.org) is the world's oldest and largest organization of clergy sexual abuse survivors, with over 10,000 members and 72 chapters in the United States

The theology professor who wrote this op-ed parses Benedict's statement on what went wrong as referring to "the church’s entire manner of self-presentation, the way in which church representatives taught Christ, and more importantly, showed him forth."

Please cut the BS and get to the reality: bishops criminally endangered children to avoid scandal that would affect their reputations. They obstructed justice by failing to report crimes in accord with the law, using corrosive secrecy to protect their assets.

Bishops further lied to survivors about their perpetrators, did not inform treatment centers about full sexual abuse histories. They hid the truth, grievously wounded survivors, and then have the gall to claim they did nothing legally or morally wrong.

Enough blaming of priests, of society, of generalized sinfulness. These are nothing but deflecting and dissembling strategies to avoid examination of the core clericalism and arrogance at the heart of the scandal. Tell me why the amply documented corruption of bishops is never cited in Benedict's writings as a factor in the scandal.

Benedict needs to stop hiding evidence from government investigations, remove complicit bishops, name abusive priests so children may be protected. But he will never do those things, so his words are empty exercises of foggy damage control. I am left with the taste of ashes.

Reading through his collections of letters, reflections, speeches, apologies, on and on, is an exercise in futility. Decisive actions beyond band-aid, long overdue procedural reforms are mandatory. Instead we get words like those in this speech, which are very, very cheap --- and tiresome. Not wise, as the headline implies.

The theology professor who wrote this op-ed parses Benedict's statement on what went wrong as referring to "the church’s entire manner of self-presentation, the way in which church representatives taught Christ, and more importantly, showed him forth."

Please cut the BS and get to the reality: bishops criminally endangered children to avoid scandal that would affect their reputations. They obstructed justice by failing to report crimes in accord with the law, using corrosive secrecy to protect their assets.

Bishops further lied to survivors about their perpetrators, did not inform treatment centers about full sexual abuse histories. They hid the truth, grievously wounded survivors, and then have the gall to claim they did nothing legally or morally wrong.

Enough blaming of priests, of society, of generalized sinfulness. These are nothing but deflecting and dissembling strategies to avoid examination of the core clericalism and arrogance at the heart of the scandal. Tell me why the amply documented corruption of bishops is never cited in Benedict's writings as a factor in the scandal.

Benedict needs to stop hiding evidence from government investigations, remove complicit bishops, name abusive priests so children may be protected. But he will never do those things, so his words are empty exercises of foggy damage control. I am left with the taste of ashes.

Reading through his collections of letters, reflections, speeches, apologies, on and on, is an exercise in futility. Decisive actions beyond band-aid, long overdue procedural reforms are mandatory. Instead we get words like those in this speech, which are very, very cheap --- and tiresome. Not the "wise" words that the headline implies.

For years Pope Benedict quarterbacked the sex abuse cover-up when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and in charge of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the Vatican. This clumsy spin effort to reinvent him as the new moral authority in the church is laughable. The sex crimes against children that his priests and nuns have perpetrated still have to be brought to justice with full punishment to all those who deserve it. This crisis is far from over.

The Pope's words are blunt and indeed reflect the reasons behind clerical abuse. Well, he is not going to satisfy everyone by these words or even action.Those who are biased against him and his Church will still cry foul.Better ignore them.

As a physician who has met many who were sexually abused by priests as children, I believe that Pope Benedict XVI could make a difference in reducing reasons for the sexual abuse of children by priests, by ending mandatory celibacy, and giving priests the freedom to marry, if they wish to, and have children of their own, and living more balanced lives.

The lack of concern for the welfare of the child victims by the celibate clergy speaks volumes to me of the dehumanization that mandatory celibacy can cause in priests, in bishops, in cardinals, and even in the Pope.

It is known that the Church's demand for mandatory celibacy can place a person in an unhealthy limbo of immaturity. This psychosexual stunting of development can lead to the seeking of sexual outlets in inappropriate ways.

I have met many good priests in my life, despite the abnormal type of lifestyle that the Roman Catholic Church imposes upon them by demanding celibacy.

It is indeed time for the Pope and hierarchy to reflect on how they can help to create a more human and caring Church.

This must include the freedom of priests to be all that they can be, including the freedom to marry and even become real fathers. This also means recognizing and welcoming women as equal partners in the Church, for the greater glory of God.

It is long past time to get a clue that this abuse debacle is merely one more episode in a long history of criminal behavior by Rome. The pope is not "wise" but deeply deceptive, and there is a big difference. It's all moot now. Take a look at the following press releases to see what the Vatican truly fears. It has a far bigger problem brewing that will soon cause its imminent demise.

Pope Benedict in his 2010 Christmas Greeting goes no further than the “sins of priests.” Regrettably, he stops short of speaking of those “sins” as the mortal sins and crimes they truly are.

More than that, he neglects to address the sins and crimes of the bishops who enabled and facilitated those sexual predators, thus putting untold numbers of children in harm’s way -- children who would never have been sexually molested by individual priests had the bishops acted with the barest of due diligence.

In the past, cardinal archbishops have spoken time after time about the sexual abuse of children by predatory priests as an “American problem” or a “homosexual problem” in an attempt to mitigate the seriousness of what was happening.

Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum blamed it all on the permissiveness of those New Englanders in the Archdiocese of Boston, Massachusetts!

One remembers as well that when the studies on the sexual abuse of women religious were reported in the secular media some of those same churchmen sought to limit the scope of the problem geographically.

As has been shown in diocese after diocese in the United States and now throughout the world, the protection of the “Lord’s little ones” was not the bishops’ primary concern. In fact, it was of no concern. The responsibility for the crimes of rogue priests and enabling bishops does not lie with the People of God.

Pope Benedict's theological argument citing proportionism is just one more rather sophisticated attempt at placing the blame elsewhere and it does not wash.

Yes, “only the Truth saves,” but it appears once again that the pope uses words that attempt to excuse the very real evil that has been perpetrated on the innocents and thus mitigate the responsibility of bishops. The abuse of episcopal power and authority is what needs to be named and addressed by the pope and yet he has not done so.

Pope Benedict says, “We are well aware of the particular gravity of this sin committed by priests and of our corresponding responsibility.”

Can that possibly be so when an equal if not more serious part of the “sin” continues to be ignored or at least unspoken? I don't think so.

It is the bishops’ abuse of power and authority that has raised the church’s continuing sexual abuse problems to the level of scandal and yet no bishop in the United States has been disciplined or sanctioned in any way for his part in protecting and enabling known sexual predators.

As far as Archbishop Bernard Cardinal Law is concerned he could hardly have stayed on in Boston having completely lost the confidence of his priests.

No bishop’s resignation has been requested in the U.S. and there are more than a few whose actions are as bad as or worse than the actions of some of the Irish bishops whose resignations were accepted by the pope.

Excuses such as the “context of the times,” which the pope speaks of are just that, excuses that in no way mitigate the pure evil that was visited on children and young people by narcissistic sociopaths.

Both the acts and those perpetrating such perfidy were evil and the bishops have a grave responsibility for their part in enabling and facilitating such abuse.

It is not that there is something “wrong in our proclamation,” of the Christian message but there is a dissonance between the “proclamation” itself and what the bishops were and actually are doing; enabling and protecting rogue priests then, and viciously opposing statute of limitation reform now that would better protect all children.

The bishops were and are, to a large extent, proclaiming one thing but doing something directly opposed to the Gospel message.

Do as I say not as I do still appears to be the mantra of the day.

No matter how dressed-up the words are, the abuse of episcopal power and authority is at the heart of this scandal.

Bishop Santa Claus is a child advocate, consecrated Bishop, and Christian Monk. He takes Pope Benedict XVI to task for what he observes as the Pope's moral failure, regarding the issue of child abuse by clergy, and maintains the Pope should resign, as permitted by Roman Catholic Code of Canon Law 332 S2.

Bishop Santa characterizes the Vatican's most recent proposal, regarding child abuse by clergy, that it will undertake "preparation work for a circular...on the guidelines to offer a coordinated and efficient program" as extraordinarily inadequate, "Far too little remedy, and far too late."

Bishop Santa observes, "It appears that, according to the Roman Catholic Catechism, the Pope may have committed the mortal sin of pride and may burn in Hell for eternity. The Pope clearly has placed his interests and those of his clergy, the Vatican, and the Catholic Church above the needs of vulnerable children and his parishioners."

Bishop Santa prays that, "The Pope will make the courageous decision to issue a Papal Edict or Papal Bull -- directing all Roman Catholic clergy to immediately report all cases of suspected and confirmed instances of child abuse by clergy to the appropriate governing authorities for criminal investigation and ensuring the full cooperation of the Roman Catholic Church with those investigations. And, that the Pope will swiftly and permanently laicize (dismiss), by decree, all clergy who have been found guilty of child abuse."

Bishop Santa's observation that the Pope may have committed the mortal sin of pride and may burn in Hell for eternity is supported by the following sections of the Roman Catholic Catechism that appear with full text online at: www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/ccc_toc.htm and at www.TheSanta.im.

The abuse of children: #2285, #2389, and #2356.

Submission to governing authorities: #2094, #2238, #1899, and #2235.

Mortal sin and Hell: #1857, #1861, #1874, and #1033.

Forgiveness and reconciliation: #1462, #2631, #1468, and #1453.

Fortitude: #1808 and #2090.

Bishop Santa recalls a radio address Pope Benedict XVI (then Ratzinger) made more than 4 decades ago in 1969 (translated): "From today's crisis, a church will emerge tomorrow that will have lost a great deal. She will be small and to a large extent she will have to start from the beginning. She will no longer be able to fill many of the buildings created in her period of great splendor. Because of the smaller number of her followers she will lose many of her privileges in society... It will make her poor and a church of the little people... All this will require time. The process will be slow and painful."

Bishop Santa asks the Pope, "Why do you expect people to have faith in the Church at a time when it would seem the hierarchy of the Church does not practice what it professes are its own Christian principles and catechism?"

Also, "Can a Pope who has committed a mortal sin and is burning in Hell for eternity be beatified, canonized, or achieve sainthood?"

"How does one," Bishop Santa inquires, "who praises the strength and fortitude of Christ, who submitted himself to a governing authority and suffered crucifixion, fail to recognize the parallel situation that exists in the Church today?"

Perhaps, formulating his own answer and referring to the Bible, Bishop Santa quotes Matthew 25:40: "And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."

Bishop Santa concludes that the Pope has a very clear choice: (1) to continue to commit the sin of pride against vulnerable children, parishioners, and governing authority and burn in Hell for eternity, or, instead, (2) to elect to protect the millions of children in his care, address what the Pope has called "the sin inside the church," identify and remove child abusers from the Church's midst, cooperate with their prosecution by governing authorities, and get them treatment, compensate victims of abuse, restore faith in the Roman Catholic Church (and Christianity in general), set a positive example for other denominations suffering from similar child abuse issues, repent, reconcile, and do penance.

Bishop Santa believes the Pope's issuing an Edit or Bull would demonstrate his intent to resolve the issue of child abuse by clergy and would confirm, by decisive action, his commitment to protect all children entrusted to his care, above and beyond the Pope's evident and longstanding concern for the perceived needs of his clergy, the Vatican, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Pope, himself. Bishop Santa emphasizes, "The time to do that is now."

I'm not a Catholic, but I agree with the Pope. There are no Christian/Catholic holy books or clergy that advocate sexual abuse. The clergy that perpetrate such vile crimes are outside the Church and outside Christianity. This isn't an issue of the priesthood. This is an issue that permeates our entire society including the Church and including everything outside the Church, too, unfortunately.

The Church-haters on this comment section are refusing to see that our culture itself is broken. Our society advocates promiscuity, sexualizes children, and permits organizations such as NAMBLA to thrive. I am not anti-gay by any means, but even groups that originally just advocated rights for gays now align themselves with groups that advocate lowering the age of consent. This is the age of moral and ethical relativism and people who don't understand that some things are Absolutely Wrong often succumb to their desires by justifying them.

You people who seem to think that forced celibacy is the reason for the abuse are flat-out wrong. It's not celibacy that's the issue. Straight/heterosexual priests are not the ones committing these crimes. Unfortunately the molesters are usually found to be homosexual priests and not heterosexual priests. This data is not "my opinion". This has been found to be fact and is, in fact, documented. I'm sure it's available online, so do your research if you want detail

You said- "The Church, he reminded us, does not exist in isolation from trends and tendencies in the general society, and therefore, this terrible ecclesiastical problem of clerical sexual abuse should be understood in relation to certain dysfunctions within the environing culture."
I thought the the church was immune to social trends and tenants did not change? The pope, and yourself, trying to pass off this abomonation of child abuse, (sanctioned by the complicity of the church), as the result of society's woes is morally insulting and disgusting on many levels. The abuse within the church has been going on for many, many decades. These were not wise words uttered by the pope. Those words were just another obscenity to the victims.
You should be ashamed of yourself.

There is no end to hypocritical clerical arrogance in the Catholic Church regarding child sex abuse in their organization. They just keep trying to top themselves. We have Donald Wuerl claiming the Church's response to child sex abuse as a "great accomplishment", and here we have the Pope playing the anti-Catholicism card and, once again, conveniently forgetting and/or pardoning his personal culpability and that of hundreds of bishops around the world who aided and abetted the evil and felonious behavior of their priests, while idiot acolytes such as Bob Barron pervert the word "wise".

The reasons behind clerical sexual abuse are much more than "recent" trends towards child abuse worldwide. Though there certainly has been horrible new developements in this age-old problem, such as sexual tourism, I highly doubt that sexual abuse of children by church leaders is one of those recent developments. That it has finally come into light is more a positive sign of the times than a negative, in my view - children are finally getting a voice. The Church, of course, will not alter its ways to fit the modern world - it would be a admittal of its current failings and a slippery path that could, it's true, lead to complete moral decay. What would the Church do without its stringent religious dogma? This is the trap humanity has made for itself. We either open our eyes to the fallibility of what was taught to us to be the only way, and become lost, or we close our eyes and live in hypocrisy, as the Church has done for centuries, if not millenia. With standards no human could ever hope to live up to, paired with a penchant for looking the other way when it suits them, the Catholic Church is in the forefront of the out-dated social tools so ingrained into our culture that we cannot hope to extract ourselves from them without tearing ourselves apart.

Very interesting article. Of course ethical relativism is everywherehttp://www.hwbrain.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=92
but ethical relativism is not science, is not a necessary consequence of Eistein relativity thet is real science, E.R. is lack of science. On the contrary future Theory of Everithing points only in opposite direction to unscientific relativism.

If I may continue in the same vein as Kyriakos...blog comments on any issue Catholic as presented in the media are usually full of vinditive and some representative of SNAP is always present with lengthy posts of the failures of this or that bishop. Folks, we who are practicing Catholics, also see the failures, but perhaps from our continued engagement with the Church and her gifts (Confession, Mass and the Eucharist), the failures of the bishops are enlightened and balanced by our knowledge of our own individual sins and failures. The Faith calls all of us to repent for our sins and to forgive others of theirs. Very much has been done to rectify the wrongs of the past and yet I think it will never be enough for SNAP and the professional critics of the Church.

Talk is cheap. All this blather and hand-wringing from Pope Ratzinger has done nothing to redress the serious wrongs committed under the aegis of the hierarchical church.
When is he going to fire a few cardinals and archbishops? When is he going to do an act of public penance for his role in this shameful chapter of church history? When is he going to realize that it is not moral relativism that is turning people off to the church; it is the arrogance of the clergy, their lack of accountability, the church's failure to allow freedom of speech, due process, openness, and acceptance of all God's children including GLBTs?
People are walking away from the church because the church has first walked away from the people of God. I am a 74-year-old Bronx Irish Catholic married male. And I am hanging on to my Catholic faith by the skin of my teeth. Fortunately, as an Irisman, I am "thick" enough that I won't let the clergy drive me from my church.